Jury Blames Radio Station In Fatal Crash

DELAND — A jury ruled Thursday that a radio station must pay $1 million to the parents of a man killed in a traffic accident.

The ruling ended a trial in which the parents charged that the station should not have let a man who was a habitual traffic offender use a car for which the station was responsible.

The suit charged that Terry Wayne ''Bulldog'' Hester, a disc jockey for WNFY-FM, Ormond Beach, was drunk and driving erratically at the time of the May 29, 1983, accident in Volusia County. He had 15 traffic convictions, including alcohol-related offenses, in the seven years before the accident, the suit said.

The circuit court jury in DeLand found Ronette Communications Corp., Ormond Beach, owner of the radio station, responsible for $1 million in punitive damages to Pasquale and Frances Lopez of Ocala for the death of their son, Ramon, 21, a University of Central Florida student.

Ronette also must share with New World Communications of San Diego and its president, Gerald Clifton, the cost of a $200,000 compensatory damage award to the Lopezes, the jury ruled.

Hester ''regularly and often broadcast remarks promoting consumption of alcoholic beverages and intoxication,'' the suit said.

Clifton, a consultant working for Ronette, had rented a 1983 Oldsmobile Delta 88 for his own use a few days before the accident but turned it over to the station for return to Budget Rent-a-Car. Instead, Ronette allowed Hester to use it.

Hester was driving west on State Road 40 near Barberville when his car collided with a 1973 Ford Ranchero in which Lopez and Joseph Viano, 20, Ocala, were riding. All three were killed.

David Walsh, counsel for New World Communications and Clifton, said the Volusia County jury ''expressed the sense of the community on the drunken- driving issue and the responsibility of someone giving a car to a person who has no business operating one on the highways.''

Attorney Cliff Gosney of Daytona Beach, representing Ronette, said the decision will be appealed.

The jury absolved Budget Rent-a-Car of Florida, another defendant in the suit, of responsibility.

The suit said that Hester's convictions included two for alcohol-related offenses and one for reckless driving and that his driver's license had been suspended or revoked about 10 times.

He had been classified by the state Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles as a habitual traffic offender, the complaint said.

In a separate civil court action against the same defendants, relatives of Viano recently settled their case out of court for an undisclosed amount.